Battle of Vitkov

The Battle of Vitkov occurred from 12 June to 14 July 1420 during the Hussite Wars. The 80-strong Hussite force led by Jan Zizka skillfully defended the city of Prague from an 8,000-strong army of German, Bohemian Catholic, and Hungarian knights loyal to Emperor Sigismund, decisively defeating Sigismund's much larger army in the first major Hussite victory of the war.

Background
In 1415, the Prague University rector and religious reformer Jan Hus was burned at the stake after travelling to Rome to address the Council of Constance. Outraged by this duplicity, numerous small groups of dissidents joined under the name of their martyr and the Hussite movement was formed. In 1417, the Catholic Church declared all of Hus' followers to be heretics and sent in an army raised by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund. The situation went from arrests, trials, and burnings to open rebellion following an incident in 1419 when some of the King's councillors were thrown from an upper window in Prague to their deaths amongst the crowd below in the First Defenestration of Prague. On 1 March 1420, the Pope declared a crusade against the heretics. Sigismund raised an army in neighboring Saxony and invaded. The Hussites elected four military commadners, among them the half-blind royal gamekeeper Jan Zizka, who had previously served under Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia. Zizka resolved to defend the tented encampment of Tabor in the countryside 50 miles south of Prague, and he also eliminated all of the royal garrison in Prague before setting out for the west to attract more recruits fro the cause. Meanwhile, German Catholics in the eastern city of Kutna Hora massacred the local Hussites, indicating that this was going to be a long, bitter struggle. Zizka became trapped in the western city of Plzen by a force of local Catholics; unable to risk the arrival of Sigismund and his much larger army, he signed a truce with his besiegers and left for Tabor with only 400 troops and a train of just 12 supply wagons. The Catholics broke the truce and 2,000 men-at-arms attacked him on the march in the Battle of Sudomer. He drew his small force up with the earthbanks of some fishponds on one flank and secured his other flank with the wagons. Although the Catholic men-at-arms dismounted and pressed their attacks until nightfall, they failed and quit the field, and both sides suffered heavy casualties. Back at Tabor, Zizka began converting peasant wagons into war wagons crewed with 16 men and a pair of armored drivers, and, while there were a few mounted and armored nobles in the Hussite army, most of the Hussite soldiers were infantry equipped with agricultural tools such as flails, billhooks, and axes used as weapons with little modification.

In midsummer of 1420, Sigismund and an army of 80,000 Bohemians, Germans, Hungarians, and others (mostly mercenaries) made camp on the higher north bank of Bubny; the knights were so well-armored that the shield had become obsolete. The Imperial army prepared to capture Prague from the Hussites, who had recently lost the castle of Hradcany and Vysehrad to the royal forces. However, they could not assault the city with the Vitkov ridge in enemy hands, so Sigismund deployed his cannon at Bubny in the north beyond the river and on the Sickhouse Field. Zizka knew that the guns were not closely supported and decided to sortie from the Porici Gate, driving their crews back north over the river and capturing the cannon. The next day, Sigismund planned diversionary attacks from Hradcany and Vysehrad, while over 1,000 Saxon cavalry under Heinrich of Isenburg were to launch themselves at the improvised fortifications on the ridge, followed by an assault by German and Hungairan knights across the field.

Battle
Zizka had forseen the Imperial attack on the Vitkov palisade, so he positioned his first line of reserves between the ridge and the city walls. A second force under Jan Zelivsky lay in wait at the Porici Gate. The ridge assault saw the Hussites hold their ground against a much larger Imperial force; one small fort was successfully held by a mere 26 men and three women. Zizka headed out in support at the head of his bodyguard and with the rest of the reserves, and the inadequate Imperial command meant that there was no one to warn them or respond to the counterattack. The Hussite counterattack took the Impreials by surprise, and the Imperial troops broke and fled down the steep northern slope, leaving several hundred casualteis behind them. Hussite reserves sortied from the Porici Gate and attacked the men on the Sickhouse Field, and the Imperial army as a whole began to rout.

Aftermath
Sigismund's army soon suffered from disease during the summer heat, and the lack of money and bickering between the leading noblemen led to many mercenaries leaving the army and Sigismund being forced to lift his siege of Prague at the end of July. His 18,000-strong remnant of his old army was defeated at the Battle of Vysehrad shortly after. The Hussite capture of Prague allowed for them to mine gold and silver near Kutna Hora and iron and quicksilver near Prague. Zizka began equipping large numbers of his men with handguns, and the Hussites defeated the Imperialist troops in twelve more battles. In 1421, Zizka was wounded in his good eye during a siege and was blinded, and he died in 1424 at the age of 64. In 1433, the moderate Hussites made peace with the Catholic Church and were allowed to freely practice their rites, but the radical Taborites refused to compromise their beliefs, resulting in a Hussite civil war and the moderate victory at the Battle of Lipany in 1434. Peace was now concluded with the Imperial states, although another anti-Hussite crusade occurred from 1464 to 1471. Sigismund, having lost every battle against the Hussites, was defeated by the Ottomans at Golubac in 1428 and died in 1437.